Operators recognize the continuing importance of technology and partnership in finding and producing oil and gas, even as traditional appraisal and development approaches continue to evolve.
Speaking at CERAWeek by S&P Global in Houston last month, experts said they were updating their appraisal and development strategies, calling on technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to boost their efforts, and remaining cognizant of potential risks.
Guido Brusco, chief operating officer at Eni, said during a 24 March session on exploration activities at CERAWeek that the operator has re-evaluated whether a significant appraisal campaign to characterize a discovery is “always the best strategy.” Sometimes it can be better to start with a phased approach to allow for earlier production and the gathering of dynamic data, which can “help understand what you have underground.”
John Ardill, vice president of global exploration and new ventures at ExxonMobil, highlighted the importance of imaging technology and data in exploration activities. “If we can't see it, we can't find it.”
The supermajor brought “Angola-type” learnings to its activities in Guyana, he said. “Partnership’s key there. So, we have partnership with the government regulator that’s growing its capacity, and that’s good. It doesn't matter if the country doesn't have an oil and gas industry, we can build that together.”
Nicolas Terraz, president of exploration and production at TotalEnergies, acknowledged that geopolitical risks don’t always occur where expected, and countries that seem stable may have a tax regime change overnight. Such a change can “make a find that was attractive, unattractive,” he said.
Equinor CEO Anders Opedal called the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) the “offshore Permian” during a 23 March session on company strategies at CERAWeek. The NCS is mature, but it’s Equinor’s core business, he said.
“We don’t see the big elephants anymore,” he said. “But we see a lot of small discoveries close to existing infrastructure.”
Equinor is targeting an average of 2 to 3 years to bring smaller finds from discovery to production. For example, he cited the Omega South discovery of 90 million bbl of recoverables in the Snorre area of the North Sea, which Equinor said is planned for rapid development.
“We will sanction it in 2 months, and start it up in 2½ years,” he said. “We are shortening the time from discovery to production.”
AI is helping companies like Equinor sift through old and new data, Opedal said, by helping “find a lot of discoveries the human eye missed in the past.”
In the Troll and Fram area, which Equinor thought “must be empty,” he said, combining new seismic, AI, and other digital solutions had added up to 500 million bbl of recoverables. “AI is really making a difference in exploration.”
SLB CEO Olivier Le Peuch said while AI has been in use in the industry for decades, the emergence of generative AI and agentic AI are transforming workflows. “AI is a production engine. It can be used to fast-track, accelerate, extract insights, seismic inversion, well planning” and more.
Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub said during the session that while the industry doesn’t “have enough tools yet” to get more oil out of its reservoirs, techniques like CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) can help.
“We've been a carbon-management company for a long time” and have been doing CO2 enhanced EOR flooding for 5 decades, she said.
However, Oxy didn’t have access to sufficient volumes of naturally occurring CO2 to fully develop its flooding potential in the Permian. That constraint prompted the company to pursue direct air capture.
“Now we have four successful EOR pilots in the shale,” she said.
